Facebook now lets users include hashtags in posts

The hashtags will thread with #instagram, but lag behind #Google+'s progress.

Facebook is setting itself up to introduce the hashtag to status posts, per a press release from the company Wednesday. The company acknowledges that the feature is “similar to other services like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest,” and will in fact integrate with the hashtags used on Instagram.

Prior to this move, hashtags on Facebook had little purpose other than to mock the feature so often used on Twitter and Instagram to categorize posts into a single, thematic feed. Facebook noted that previously, while it was able to see the trends in what people were discussing (the “Red Wedding” episode of Game of Thrones and the NBA Finals among them), there was no way for readers to see a cohesive stream of those posts. During TV primetime, between 88 million and 100 million users out of one billion are circling the site, Facebook says.

Now, Facebook cordially invites users to fill their status posts to the brim with hashtags and discuss things communally, the way they do on Twitter. This new feature catches Facebook up to some of its competitors, but the humble hashtag still lags behind Google+’s recent feature announcement, which will auto-tag posts based on their visual and text content and allow them to be sorted appropriately.

Facebook entitled the hashtag memo “public conversations,” which suggests that including a hashtag in a post may automatically make that post viewable to the public. Facebook did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

Update: According to a statement from a Facebook representative, posts containing hashtags will be constrained the privacy settings given by the user. Including a hashtag will not force the post to be public or viewable by anyone who views the hashtag.

This reminds me of the time I heard a girl call the '#' a hashtag instead of a number sign when telling her friend how to get into her apartment gate.

It was called the same thing at the end of Olympus Has Fallen. It's a misnomer. The proper nomenclature is "number sign", "pound sign", or "hash". "Hashtag" refers to the entire hashtag, not the symbol.

Out of curiosity, and perhaps somewhat off-topic, why would this article carry the "startups" tag? Sure, Facebook is starting up some hashcrap, but I don't think that makes them, or Instagram, a "startup."

This feature could potentially be awesome if Facebook included a feature that lets me hide all these hashtags in my news feed. Then I wouldn't have to put up with the fake ones people still include there now.

Unfortunately, Facebook is not widely known for giving its users options.

I guess I really am the only one who thinks @ and # is a step backwards about a decade.

It's bad enough when I have to tell people to use the pound symbol they look me at me like a dog when you whistle at it. Then I say "Ya know, the so-called hash tag?" and then they get it. Forget even having to explain the caret symbol..oh yeah, we don't use dial up modems anymore.

- Nested comments in all posts. If not all posts at least Group posts.- Nested Photo Albums. This one is my biggest pet peeve with Facebook. Let me group albums together!- Along that line, albums for videos! Let me sort videos out!

Oh, also allow gifs! Just because. And adding photos as comments to a post. For instance right now I want to add another photo in a conversation on a photo I posted earlier but I'm going to have to upload it as a separate one.

Of course, I have a few friends who slap fucking hashtags on everything they post on FB... which I can almost, kinda-sorta understand, if you're using some kind of cross-platform service/app to post to Twitter/FB/G+, etc. But when you're only posting to Facebook, and you put ten goddamn hashtags in your post (which is only 12 words long to begin with), then you're just a fucking moron. At least now, you'll be slightly less moronic.

I guess I really am the only one who thinks @ and # is a step backwards about a decade.

Judging by 16 upvotes and no downvotes, no, you're not the only one.

However, don't forget that most people who use the internets are about a decade behind. We had to drag them screaming and biting into the 21st century. Teaching them rudimentary markup such as a hashtag is progress for them.

During TV primetime, between 88 million and 100 million users out of one billion are circling the site, Facebook says.

And here we go with One Billion Users #bullshit again. You may have a billion user accounts that have been created on your systems, but I very seriously doubt that more than 35% of those are unique individual human users.